Robotics & Technological Assessment

What I find most interesting in this week's lesson is also related to my individual topic review paper, which is Robotics. One that intrigues me is a video of a robot, that has brain cells of rats in it. The robot feeds information to the living cells that is kept alive, and the cells would give instructions to where the robot should move. Although simple, it is a clear demonstration of how biotechnology can be integrated with robotic engineering. 


It is interesting that how technology can be assessed in this way, such that an organisation will review through all the ideas generated to determine which is accepted or rejected. In some way, really good ideas will be buried deep in this system, where it will not see the light in shaping the future of the world we live in. The Japanese culture have a adoption rate of 60%, as compared to 10% in America. I feel that it is really healthy for automakers in Japan to take the suggestions of its workers as they are specialized in a single field, thus the suggestions that give are very valuable and have direct impact on the business. 


There are a few concepts that are deployed to assess technology, such as:

1. Parliamentary TA
2. Expert TA
3. Participatory TA
4. Constructive TA 
5. Discursive TA or Argumentative TA:
6. Health TA 

More information of these various technology assessment can be found in wikipedia, however I feel that there should not be one fixed form of technological assessment that is able to fit everything. Instead, a matrix should be given, such that the various factors from each of the 6 concepts are addressed.


This brings me back to my original topic of robotics. The initial motivation of introducing robotics to achieve automation in performing tasks is going down, and humans are "making-do" with their current standards. The demand for robots are mainly in the more developed countries like Japan, and research on it is limited to the investments. As mentioned, nanotechnology can be integrated with robotics to form nanobots, automated robots that are microscopic in size. They could be deployed in many areas such as the medical field, travelling through bloodstreams to cure illnesses.


I feel that as technology advances, more and more studies will fuse and cross path. The study of robotics and artificial intelligence will study the blueprint of life in-depth, such that it replicated the cells of living tissues. Robots will then have specialised "cells" and self-replicating nanobots, forming an organism very much alike humans.